2023-08-16 16:15:51
Cirrhosis is one of the main causes of mortality in the world and the second cause of years of life lost in Europe. It can cause hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of liver cancer, and the two diseases together are responsible for the death of two million people each year in the world.
Cirrhosis is produced by the accumulation of fibrous tissue in the liver and is the consequence of any inflammatory process caused by various factors.
Some scientists have carried out a study that has culminated in the design of an index that makes it possible to determine the risk of developing cirrhosis or other serious liver diseases in the general population. Thanks to the use of eight variables, it will be possible to apply changes in the lifestyle of people at risk, diagnose these diseases early and start treatments that slow down their progression.
The study was carried out within the framework of the European LiverScreen project coordinated by Dr. Pere Ginès, consultant of the Hepatology Service of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, head of the group Chronic liver diseases: molecular mechanisms and clinical consequences of the August Pi Biomedical Research Institute i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) in Barcelona, Professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona and group leader of the Center for Networked Biomedical Research in the Thematic Area of Liver and Digestive Diseases (CIBEREHD) in Spain.
Although cirrhosis caused by the hepatitis C virus has decreased thanks to new treatments, its prevalence due to metabolic fatty liver disease, due to the epidemics of type 2 diabetes and obesity, is increasing dramatically.
“It is a disease that develops very slowly and does not produce symptoms, so that very often when it is diagnosed it is in a very advanced phase and in which the possibilities of treatment are very limited”, explains Pere Ginès. “Being able to identify early which people are at risk of progressive liver fibrosis would make it possible to apply changes in people’s lifestyles or carry out treatments to prevent the development of cirrhosis,” he adds.
Until now, non-invasive techniques or analytics-based risk calculators had certain limitations. There was an unmet medical need for simple tools based on clinical or laboratory variables to identify people at risk of liver fibrosis.
Pere Ginès, studio coordinator. (Photo: Hospital Clínic / IDIBAPS)
Predict the risk of liver disease
The study, carried out within the framework of an international consortium, first focused on the development of a risk index. To do so, the research team, led by Miquel Serra-Burriel of the University of Zurich in Switzerland, relied on data from 6,400 people with no known liver disease, but who after a hepatic elastography test, which determines liver stiffness of the liver, it was found that some of them had liver fibrosis. This risk index was then validated in a group of 8,369 people from the general population and its prognostic value was determined in a cohort of more than 416,000 participants without liver disease and with a follow-up of 12 years.
The index, called ©LiverRisk, is based on 8 variables: age, gender and six standard laboratory variables that can be determined in any laboratory in the world. It makes it possible to make a prediction of the appearance of liver fibrosis and of what is the normal or abnormal situation of a person’s liver and also to anticipate the possibility of the appearance of long-term complications. “In this way, the possibility of a person having cirrhosis in the long term and ending up developing cancer or dying from the disease can be foreseen”, points out Dr. Ginès.
“The applicability is similar to that of cardiovascular risk factors that have existed for many years and that predict whether a person is at risk of having a myocardial infarction,” says Dr. Ginès. “In this case it would be similar, but determining the risk of severe liver disease. And this is important because it may have applicability in terms of early diagnosis of these diseases and treatment before patients develop cirrhosis and therefore applicability is very important in an area where until now there was no possibility early diagnosis”, he concludes.
The study is titled “Development, validation, and prognostic evaluation of a risk score for long-term liver-related outcomes in the general population: a multicohort study”. And it has been published in the academic journal The Lancet. (Source: Hospital Clínic / IDIBAPS)
#calculate #risk #liver #disease